What is Irish food?

It's not either/or; it's both/and

I’m standing in the Blas na hÉireann (Irish Food Awards) marquee in Dingle, Co. Kerry listening to the 2022 winners of the sourdough bread category being read out.

‘The bronze goes to Arán Bakery for their heritage sourdough. The silver goes to Arán Bakery for their multi-seed sourdough. And the gold goes to Arán Bakery for their spelt sourdough.’ Owner Bart lets out a whoop! each time Arán’s name is announced.

As if that hat trick wasn’t enough, Arán also won the Best in County award for Kilkenny, the Best in Leinster award for the province and was ultimately crowned Supreme Champion, Blas na hÉireann’s highest honour.

Walking out of the marquee afterwards, Bart could hardly be seen behind the towering stack of awards he was carrying.

It’s not unheard of for one food producer to sweep the awards in their category like that. But what might surprise you is that behind the Kilkenny bakery with the Irish name (arán means bread in Irish), co-owners Bartlomiej (Bart) Pawlukojc is from Poland and his wife, Nicole Server-Pawlukojc, is Filipino. Their nine-year-old Irish niece is the one who came up with the name.

Bart and Nicole met while doing a stage in Noma in Copenhagen, married and moved to Ireland and opened Arán in 2019. To me, Bart and Nicole epitomise what Irish food is today.

And what is Irish food?

As international food and travel advisor Anthony O’Toole said in a panel discussion later that same day, ‘Irish food is people and landscape.’

It’s also, of course, the ingredients.

‘Everything we do is predicated on the best ingredients we can get our hands on,’ says Nicole – for example, their spelt sourdough uses 80% local spelt flour from Kells Wholemeal.

She goes on to say that that loaf of bread represents their entire approach at Arán: ‘Start with the very best and then add a little love and skill.’

When you think of Irish food this way – as people and place, ingredients and expertise, love and skill – it blows the definition of what Irish food is, or can be, wide open.

Maybe the problem is that we’ve been framing it as an either/or question when really, it’s both/and.

Irish food is both traditional and modern.

It’s soda bread and spice bags.

It’s diverse and delicious.

It’s whatever we’re growing, making, cooking and eating in Ireland.

There is room at the table for all of it.

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This piece was originally published in Issue 01 of Scoop: Irish Food Stories as an answer to my companion piece in that issue, ‘This Is Not Irish Food’.

You can buy an A4 or A3 version of The Modern Irish Pantry print by shown at the start of this piece here.

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About me

I’m Kristin Jensen, the founder, publisher and editor at Blasta Books and Nine Bean Rows. Before I started my publishing house, I was a freelance editor and food writer for over 20 years and I’ve co-authored three books. I pretty much eat, sleep and breathe books and food. You can also find me on Instagram @edibleireland.📚